1. Field
The present disclosure relates to improvements in wireless communication devices and systems, and methods for operating same, and more particularly to monitoring operating contexts of the devices to reduce cost and improve the efficiency of operating the devices.
2. Background
Wireless mobile devices are becoming more ubiquitous all over the world. As increasing numbers of people are carrying and using such mobile devices, and the devices' complexity and computing power grows, their operating context is becoming of increased interest. The operating context of a mobile device has three main components: the physical environment in which the mobile device is operating, the operating states, conditions, and capabilities of the mobile device, and the applications or activities in which the mobile device is engaging.
The physical environment in which the mobile device is operating includes such factors as the location type, whether the mobile station is indoors or outdoors, whether it is operating in a vehicle, whether the vehicle is in the open or in a tunnel or other signal inhibiting structure, and the like. Other physical environment factors include, for example, the direction the mobile device is facing, whether the mobile device is moving or still, and if it is moving, at what speed and in what direction. Still other physical environment factors may include, for instance, weather conditions surrounding the mobile device, such as whether it is raining, foggy, sunny, windy, and so on.
The operating states, conditions, and capabilities of the mobile device include such factors as the equipment installed on the mobile device. Examples of such equipment include the battery, the memory, the display, the speakers or earphones, a satellite positioning system (such as GPS) engine, multimedia capabilities, the processor power and speed, and the like. The states, conditions, and capabilities may also include, for example, the state of charge of the battery, the brightness capabilities of the display, whether the brightness is adjustable, and so on.
The applications or activities of the mobile device may include, for example, whether the mobile device is running a navigation program, tracking or following people, running a gaming program, whether running programs are local or interactive with users of other mobile devices, and so on. Other applications or activities may include running multimedia programs, for example, receiving, transmitting, or displaying video and audio signals. Still other sophisticated examples of applications or activities may include such things as artificial intelligence and learning applications, and applications in which sophisticated decision making capabilities are needed, such as reminding a user that he is near a grocery store and his grocery list includes bread and milk, or asking a user who is stuck in traffic and will be late to a meeting if the mobile device should send a notification to the other meeting participants that the user will be late, and by how long.
Even though technological improvements to mobile devices become increasingly powerful, mobile device capabilities are still limited. For example, battery capacity is ever increasing, but operating programs such as navigation or multimedia applications require significant power which in turn limits the operating time for such applications or limits simultaneous operation of other applications. Bright daylight displays are becoming widely available with low power requirements, but night-time displays still use significant power. Mobile devices are not sufficiently self-aware to govern their behavior to conserve resources. For example, if a mobile device is in a noisy environment that makes detecting incoming calls by the user difficult, the mobile device may nevertheless continue operating the ringing at full power without taking into account its environment.
Most solutions to this problem are ad hoc. For example, a typical application operates its own interfaces to various components on a mobile device, rather than interacting with a single point of control. This configuration means that each application considers operating conditions independently. Although some efforts have been made to sense a mobile device's environment, and alter the mobile device's operation in response, holistic optimization of resources has not been addressed in a satisfactory manner. For example, it has been proposed to sense indoor and outdoor cell phone environments using phone sensors and inference analyzers. It has also been proposed to sense a sound level to put a phone into vibrate mode, and the like.